Four Toyota team members escaped unhurt when gunmen ambushed their car after leaving the Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix circuit on Friday night, a spokeswoman said.

Brazilian Fernanda de Mello Villas-Boas, who was in the vehicle, said shots were fired while one of a gang of youths tried to kick in the passenger window at a traffic lights about 3-km from the Interlagos track.

Describing the hold-up as nothing out of the ordinary in Sao Paulo, a sprawling city with one of the highest crime rates in South America, she said the gunmen would not have known who was in the car as the windows were tinted.

"I took the handbrake and told everyone (in the car) not to react)," she told Reuters. "He had a gun at my head outside the window...I think what saved us was that there was a car behind.

"They fired a few shots at it, I told people just don't move, stay down.

"All was okay in the end and we managed to drive away, it was just the shock itself."